Democrats criticize government audit of Healthcare.gov

Ordinarily you would think that members of Congress would be happy when the federal auditor, the General Accounting Office, reveals that a program is vulnerable to fraud of Biblical proportions. For instance, last year the GAO reported on fake enrollees:

The GAO’s account of fictitious applicants obtaining subsidized coverage goes beyond a related problem that surfaced this spring and that the investigators also cited: The government may be paying incorrect insurance subsidies to a significant share of the 5.4 million Americans who signed up for health plans for this year through the federal marketplace.

The GAO testimony contains updates on that problem, saying that, as of mid-July, about 2.6 million “inconsistencies” existed among applicants who had chosen a health plan and that 650,000 of them had been resolved.

Federal health officials were responsible for the problem-pocked start of HealthCare.gov last year because of poor planning and lax oversight of outside contractors, according to government investigators who warned that “significant risks remain” that some Americans could again have trouble buying coverage in the federal health insurance marketplace this fall.

If the program we’re talking about is ObamaCare, you would be wrong. It is the signature program of The LightWorker, their Precious, and therefore, it is beyond criticism:

Senior Democrats pushed back Thursday against an undercover government probe of President Barack Obama’s health care law, saying it didn’t uncover any real fraud.

Investigators for the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office signed up 11 bogus beneficiaries for 2014 coverage then got HealthCare.gov to continue benefits this year for all but one.

[mc_name name=’Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’W000779′ ], D-Ore., said these were “fictitious cases” and the GAO investigators themselves admit the findings can’t be translated to the 10 million people getting subsidized coverage through the law’s health insurance markets. Wyden spoke at a Finance Committee hearing on the investigation.

But GAO’s audits chief Seto Bagdoyan said the investigation exposed real concerns. He said it was relatively easy for GAO’s fictitious characters to get and keep coverage, even to get reinstated after HealthCare.gov terminated them. HealthCare.gov seems to put a higher priority on getting people covered than on verifying they are legally entitled to benefits, Bagdoyan said.

Democrats have no tolerance for fraud, but “the report up for discussion today is not about any real-world fraud,” Wyden said. “Not one of them was a real person who filed taxes or got medical services. No fast-buck fraudster got a government check sent to their bank account.”

By Wyden’s definition anytime the FBI makes an arrest using a sting operation it is illegitimate because the stings constitute “fictitious cases.” Wyden is a symptom of what is wrong in government today. Wyden belongs to a team. That team is not his constituents or his state or the nation. His team is a faction in the Democrat party.* It doesn’t matter if a member of that faction allows US diplomats to be butchered, or destroys documents, or gives a hostile power a nuclear weapon, the only concern Wyden and his ilk have is to that their teammate (and I mean mate in only the most manly and brotherly kind of way) is protected. A government can’t function when incompetent and malice are excused if the perpetrator is wearing the right jersey.

*This is historically the way Democrats behave. Clinton’s misfeasance and malfeasance was tolerated/glamorized by his party. The GOP, on the other hand, had no such allegiance to George Bush. This doesn’t make them virtuous, only a bit dense and slow on the uptake.